Abstract: A novel sensitive electrochemical immunoassay with colloidal gold as the antibody labeling tag and subsequent signal amplification by silver enhancement is described. Colloidal gold was treated by a light-sensitive silver enhancement system which made silver deposit on the surface of colloidal gold(form Au/Ag core-shell structure), followed by the release of the metallic silver atoms anchored on the antibody by oxidative dissolution of them in an acidic solution and the indirect determination of the dissolved Agsup>+ ions by anodic stripping voltammetry(ASV) at a carbon fiber microelectrode. The electrochemical signal is directly proportional to the amount of analyte(goat IgG) in the standard or a sample. The method was evaluated by means of a noncompetitive heterogeneous immunoassay of immunoglobulin G(IgG) with a concentration as low as 0.2 ng/mL. The high performance of the method is related to the sensitive ASV determination of silver(Ⅰ) at a carbon fiber microelectrode and to the release of a large number of Ag⁺ ions from each silver shell anchored on the analyte(goat IgG).

Key words: Colloidal gold, Silver enhancement, Anodic stripping voltammetry(ASV)